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from the who-feels-safe-in-Florida-now? dept.
Armed police raid home of Florida scientist fired over Covid-19 data
Rebekah Jones, the Florida data scientist embroiled in a dispute with the state's Republican governor over the handling of coronavirus figures, had her home raided on Monday by armed police who confiscated her computers.
In a stream of posts on Twitter, Jones posted a video of the raid that showed state police carrying handguns escorting her out of her Tallahassee home. She can be heard saying: "He just pointed a gun at my children," with her husband and two children apparently upstairs at the time.
Jones claimed in her tweets that the raid was the work of Ron DeSantis, the governor with whom she has clashed repeatedly since she was fired by the state's department of health in May in a row over Covid-19 data. She compared the incident to sending "the gestapo", adding: "This is what happens to scientists who do their job honestly. This is what happens to people who speak truth to power."
The Florida department of law enforcement confirmed they had entered Jones's house on a search warrant. But in a statement the department said the action was related to a recent computer hack of the health department website, in which emergency response coordinators were sent an unauthorised message.
Also at CNN, The Verge, and The Hill.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @04:03AM (6 children)
Let's say she sent an unauthorized message to state employees urging them to speak up about the death toll in the state. Why is that sufficient reason to conduct a raid on someone's house? That seems unreasonable in and of itself.
As per another source [miamiherald.com], the "messaging system" actually means sending an unauthorized email to state employees. This sounds like a mass email to health department employees. I work for the government in another state and we use distribution groups in Microsoft 365. The alleged hack sounds like sending an unauthorized email to one of these distribution groups. The IP address was likely identified from email headers and perhaps server logs.
Distribution groups can be restricted to users within the organization or anyone can be allowed to send mass emails to anyone in the group. The degree of security depends on the settings and might involve messages being moderated, though that's not necessarily turned on. I haven't tested it out, but it might well be possible to bypass some of the restrictions by spoofing the From: header and send an otherwise unauthorized email.
Even if all that happened, does that justify raiding someone's house? Even if Rebekah Jones did all of those things, this still seems incredibly heavy handed over what is effectively a spam email.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @08:08AM (1 child)
Of course, what we are all asking ourselves, is why did this happen to her, but it never happens to actual spammers? Hmmm?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:58PM
Of course a "data scientist" would use encryption and have offsite backups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2020, @06:55PM (1 child)
If your default answer is to use police to investigate they're going to use police tools and tactics. Especially ones that keep them from getting harmed. There are reports of officers getting shot & killed delivering warrents. Swat teams, not so much. If I were the police & the swat team wasn't busy, I'd use them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @12:14AM
And I'm sure that, come the revolution, you will make a fine little boot-licking stooge.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 09 2020, @09:09PM
It's not. This DeSantis guy is using the power of his position to silence opposition, just like in any other police state.
American conservatives often claim to be against that sort of thing, and sometimes claim they need all those guns to prevent it happening, but when one of their own does it apparently it's OK.
As is obvious from reading several of the posts here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2020, @12:11AM
Indeed. I work for DoD (specifically, USAF). Over the last ten years or so I can't count the number of times I've been spammed (e.g., because some Colonel of General mistakenly hit "Reply All"). By all means, if she inappropriately used an emergency notification system to send out her screed then go ahead and fire her ass. But are we really going down the path now of sending in the SWAT team for this kind of infraction? What the hell is wrong with this country?!?